Ever since he was a boy, Shuhei Yoshida dreamed of living outside Japan. Born and raised in Kyoto, Yoshida studied science at his local university and spent his college downtime slaying beasts in Dragon Quest. He yearned to embark on a globe-trotting adventure of his own–and just like in his favorite RPG, destiny soon came calling.
Yoshida landed a job at Sony fresh out of college, excitedly joining the company’s corporate strategy group. “With Walkman, TV and video, 80% to 90% of Sony’s business was done outside Japan,” Yoshida recalls, “So, I thought, at Sony, I might have a chance to live outside Japan.”
Working under Sony’s management group, Yoshida’s job was to help grow internal businesses. There was one new team that caught Yoshida’s eye: a small group, led by Ken Kutaragi, that had just finished developing the audio chip for Nintendo’s massively successful SNES console. Although it was one of Yoshida’s colleagues who was ultimately assigned to the project, Yoshida says he tried to assist with Kutaragi’s project wherever he could. “Ken’s team then started to work on a CD-ROM system for Super Nintendo,” Yoshida said. “My colleague was not a big video game fan, so I was giving advice to him.”